The Ludwell–Paradise House, often also called the Paradise House, is a historic home along Duke of Gloucester Street and part of Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia. The home was built in 1752–1753 for Philip Ludwell III. In December 1926, it became the first property John D. Rockefeller Jr. authorized W. A. R. Goodwin to purchase as part of the Colonial Williamsburg restoration campaign. After being restored, the Ludwell–Paradise House held the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Collection from 1935 to 1956. The building now serves as a rented private residence in the Williamsburg historic area.
Philip Ludwell II purchased the lot where the Ludwell–Paradise House was constructed in September 1700. Possibly built on the site of a prior house that was constructed between 1680 and 1690, timbers in the surviving structure were dated as being felled in 1752 and brickwork indicates the entire building was completed simultaneously. After being used as a rental property, a tavern that once hosted George Washington, and a host for The Virginia Gazette newspaper, the house's ownership passed to William Lee. Although they made an unfounded legal claim, Philip Ludwell III's daughter Lucy Ludwell Paradise and her husband, John Paradise, were associated with the house, giving the building its name. When the house was one of several properties seized from Paradise and Lee by Patriots during the American Revolutionary War, the Paradises' friend Samuel Johnson privately quipped about "Paradise's loss".
Lucy Ludwell Paradise lived in the home from 1805 until she was institutionalized at the Williamsburg Public Hospital in 1812. On her death, her grandson, Philip Ignatius Barziza, took up residence at the home and sought Thomas Jefferson's help in an unsuccessful attempt to claim it as an inheritance. Philip Barziza's son Decimus et Ultimus Barziza, later a Confederate officer and Texas politician, was born in the house. The home was later owned by the Slater family, eventually passing to Marie Louise Stewart. Stewart, knowing of Goodwin's plan to restore Williamsburg to its 18th-century appearance, sold him the property. Briefly transferred to the College of William & Mary, it was returned to the Colonial Williamsburg project and restored in the early 1930s. It would then house Abby Aldrich Rockefeller's folk art collection until a purpose-built museum was opened.
The home's restored appearance features a one-room-deep front portion that rises two stories and a single-story shed that spans the building's length on its rear, northern side. The exterior brickwork survives and is laid in the Flemish bond pattern with glazed accents. Much of the original interior woodwork has been lost, with renovations introducing paneling recovered from another 18th-century Virginia home. Reconstructed outbuildings also sit on the property.
History 18th century
The lot now containing the Ludwell–Paradise House was granted by the trustees of the new city of Williamsburg to Philip Ludwell II, then resident at the large Green Spring Plantation, located to Williamsburg's west, in September 1700. It was the eastern-most lot purchased by Ludwell at that time and fronted to Duke of Gloucester Street. The records for Ludwell's deed unusually survived, having been stored in York County and not lost with other James City County records in the burning of Richmond during the American Civil War.;
Because the eastern lot did not escheat to the city like the other two Ludwell had acquired at the same time, architectural historian Marcus Whiffen held that Ludwell had built a house on the property within two years; another home, constructed on the site between 1680 and 1690, was previously on the site. Some later opinions including from Colonial Williamsburg restoration architects Perry, Shaw and Hepburn dated the still-standing house's construction to the 1710–1717 period when Ludwell was colonial deputy auditor general. However, architectural styling suggests that it dated to after 1737, the year Philip Ludwell III took over his inheritance upon coming of age.;
Colonial Williamsburg ordered analysis utilizing dendrochronology on timbers from the house's first floor dated them to 1752. The house is now dated as having been constructed in 1752–1753 for use by Philip Ludwell III as a rental tenement. Philip Ludwell III and his ancestors were among many English transatlantic business figures who spent extended periods in England while closely monitoring their interests in Virginia. In 1738, Philip Ludwell III became one of the earliest English converts to Eastern Orthodox Christianity while in London and is the first known convert to Eastern Orthodoxy in the Americas. His three daughters–Lucy, Hannah, and Frances–were baptized as Eastern Orthodox.; Lucy went on to marry John Paradise, who was also Eastern Orthodox.
In 1755, Philip Ludwell III was advertising the house for renters in The Virginia Gazette. It would also serve as a "fashionable tavern" where the governors of Virginia would entertain guests. While in Williamsburg to serve in the House of Burgesses, George Washington stayed at the house. From the 1760s until October 1775, The Virginia Gazette newspaper was printed in the building. William and Clementina Rind of Annapolis, Maryland, were tenants in the home from 1773 and participated in the printing of newspaper.
After Philip Ludwell III's death in 1767, ownership of his Williamsburg properties passed to his daughter Frances. Frances died the next year, and her inheritance was divided between the spouses of her sisters, Paradise and William Lee (husband of Hannah Ludwell). Ownership of the "brick house", as it was identified in correspondence, became disputed. While the Paradises still claimed the property, later renting documents and deeds indicated Lee owned the house. On Lee's 1795 death, his son William Ludwell Lee is thought to have inherited the property (though it is not explicitly mentioned in the elder Lee's will). When William Ludwell Lee died unmarried in 1803, his property passed to his sisters.
Through this period, the Paradises maintained a claim to property that had belonged to the Ludwell family in Virginia. At their London home, the couple entertained figures that included Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Johnson. When their Virginia properties and the brick house in Williamsburg were seized by Patriots during the American Revolutionary War, the Paradises called upon Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin to recover their properties, though these efforts were not immediately successful. In 1778, Lee received word that his Williamsburg houses were being used by American troops as barracks. Johnson recorded the affair in his diary with the pun "Paradise's Loss".; ; John Paradise's name was applied to the structure, even though he never lived in nor owned it.; Correspondences from William Lee to Williamsburg politicians John Prentis (1785) and Benjamin Waller (1787) indicate that the house was rented out in 1785 and 1786.
19th century
Lucy Ludwell Paradise returned to Virginia permanently in August 1805, almost ten years after her husband's death. She brought all of her portable belongings, including a piano forte, an ornamented carriage, and a mahogany table at which both Jefferson and Johnson had sat. At this time, Paradise's mental state was degrading. Jefferson by then president of United States was dismissive of Paradise's efforts at correspondence once she reached Virginia. She had more success with Littleton Waller Tazewell, who had been a friend of William Ludwell Lee. He arranged to rent the brick house from Lucy Ludwell Paradise's nieces to serve as her residence.
The Williamsburg community soon deemed her an "eccentric" for her public behavior. She would placed her carriage in a room of the house and enjoyed pretending to ride it. In one episode, she took guests to the unhitched carriage and had her Black servant Henry wheel the carriage around the room for an hour before allowing the guests to disembark. Alongside mental illness, her religious customs created tension with her neighbors.; She was institutionalized at the Williamsburg Public Hospital and declared insane in January 1812. When she died there on April 24, 1814, her will erroneously listed the brick house as among her properties. Shortly afterwards, her nieces, Mrs. Hopkins and Mrs. Hodgson, reasserted their legal claim to the property.; ;
John and Lucy Ludwell Paradise's daughter Lucy married Antonio Barziza, a Venetian count. In 1815, Lucy and Antonio's son Philip Ignatius Barziza came to the United States at age 18 to claim the inheritance, including the Ludwell–Paradise House. To claim the inheritance, Philip Barziza surrendered his title of viscount and became an American citizen. Philip, like his grandmother, wrote to Jefferson in the hopes of his intervention. While Jefferson was sympathetic to the claim and entertained Barziza at Monticello, in 1826 the Virginia Supreme Court ultimately ruled against Philip in favor of Hopkins and Hodgson. Despite this, Barziza continued to rent the Ludwell–Paradise House with his Williamsburg-native wife, Cecile Belette. Philip Barziza eventually became a keeper at the Williamsburg Public Hospital and died sometime after 1858.; ;
Philip Barziza had ten children with Cecile. The last, a boy named Decimus et Ultimus Barziza, was born in the house and later served in the Texas state legislature.;
Marquis de Lafayette dined at the house during his 1824 tour of the United States. Tax records indicate ownership of the house, then known as the Paradise House, passed to James Lee by 1818. By 1854, Parks Slater was listed as responsible for the house in right of his wife, Virginia Slater, the daughter of James Lee. The home then came to also be known as the Slater House. During this time, the building entered a state of disrepair. During a 19th-century renovation, Parks Slater displayed some of the house's exposed upstairs plastering that featured portions of Revolutionary War-era newspapers. The house next passed to J. C. Slater.
Colonial Williamsburg
In 1924, Bruton Parish Church rector W. A. R. Goodwin began lobbying John D. Rockefeller Jr. for financial support for the College of William & Mary at a Phi Beta Kappa alumni event in New York City. Rockefeller travelled to Williamsburg with his wife, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and their children in March 1926. The college's president, Julian A. C. Chandler, arranged for them to tour Williamsburg by car with Goodwin. Though Rockefeller initially opted to not sponsor the restoration of the college's Wren Building, Rockefeller visited Williamsburg in November 1926 for the dedication of Phi Beta Kappa Hall on the college's campus. In early December 1926, Rockefeller wrote to Goodwin again, declining to pay for the Wren Building restoration but inquiring about restoring other Williamsburg buildings of colonial vintage.;
Later that month, Goodwin encountered real estate salesman Gardiner T. Brooks, representing the Ludwell–Paradise House's resident, Marie Louise Stewart. She had inherited the house on the death of her aunt, Kate Slater, who had resided in the house. Steward had sought to sell the house for two years. After discussing the property with Brooks, Goodwin wrote Rockefeller on December 4, informing Rockefeller that he would need $8,000 to purchase the building. Rockefeller sent a telegram to Goodwin on December 7 that authorized the purchase, referring to the house as an "antique" and signing the message "David's Father" an instance of the anonymity about his involvement in the restoration project that Rockefeller maintained until June 1928. This would be the first building acquired with Rockefeller's funds for the Colonial Williamsburg project.; ; ;